I enjoyed the show, just OK, the HMEM booth was busy each time I went by. Seemed to have less selling vendors of used items. Steam train parts vendors have grown, mostly 1.5" scale parts. Many of the same engines year after year, nothing special that I saw.
Found a used Deckel SO grinder, and hesitated to long, went back and it was gone. Cold weather but no snow, nice day for a long ride.

I drove in thursday for Fridays auction. The auction has gotten to the point of being too big. They had three guys, sometimes a gal, auctioning off stuff at once. Thus i missed 2/3rds of the sales and more frustratingly the stuff i was interested in all went on auction about the same time. Even so managed a couple of good buys including a set of snap gages and some micrometers.

For saturday i actually went out to the PA railroad museum for inspiration. That is a great place to visit.

Got back in time to run around and like you said much if the same on display. A few things where new but i was in rush mode and didn't spend a lot of time chatting with exhibitors. This kinda sucks because for somebody new to the hobby that is an opportunity to learn.

Like you i was left with the impression that a few vendors where missing. Im not sure if that was an error on my part or reality.

In any event this is the first time in a long time i didn't stay over night to pop in Sunday. Bad weather up north and house remodeling jobs hanging pulled at me so drove all night to get back to the house at about 3AM. Found 10-12 inches of snow and two foot high drifts in the driveway. So a good part of the day that i was hoping to apply to remodeling ended up being applied to shoveling. Interesting weekend to say the least.